Saturday night at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas, in a fight televised live on Showtime Championship Boxing, former WBC World middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (49-2-1, 32 KOs), from Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico, won a questionable decision over Marcos Reyes (33-3, 24 KOs), from Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico, after 10 impassioned but sloppy rounds.
The final scores were 97-92, 98-91, and 96-93.
Watching Chavez fight is less a revelation than an event that defies description. Late starter or not, he continues to fight, without the skills that might enable him to fight, and continues to get pounded in the bargain.
It has been only three months since Chavez quit on his stool in his last fight against Andzrej Fonfara. There might have been legal, financial, and personal issues which kept him from being his best on that night. But the very best Chavez, which we have seen and are not likely to see again, isn?t good enough to compete in our merciless sport.
But Chavez Jr. has decided to press on. In the three months since the Fonfara debacle, he has cleaned house and teamed up with master trainer Robert Garcia. Under the less than watchful eye of the Wizard of Oxnard, Chavez appears to have made no progress at all. Rome wasn?t built in a day, let alone three months, and no one expects a miracle. But his failure to make weight, something of a Robert Garcia specialty, doesn?t bode well for Chavez?s future, which looks no brighter after struggling with a fighter who has not one but two ring monikers, one of which is Cheetos.
Fighting out of the blue corner in maroon trunks, Chavez refused to weigh in on the night of the fight and chances are he was fighting at light heavy.
Reyes, fighting out of the red corner in black trimmed with gold, is a blown up middleweight. He came to win but must have known he was destined to lose.
Reyes was the busier fighter. He landed 164 of 690 total punches (24%) to 149 of 340 (44%) for Chavez. But that difference in accuracy is no indication of how Chavez performed in the ring. There were moments when he threw his jab and almost looked like a professional. There were more moments, many more moments, when he looked like the rankest of rank amateurs, someone who?s power and chin, stubbornness and name, are no match for boxing fundamentals.
After a performance best chalked up to a learning experience, Chavez the unrepentant said, ?I won. This is big for me and Robert. I can do it better, but I won and that is the important thing. I?m going to fight at 168 pounds. Little by little, I?m going to get down in weight. We know we?re doing much better work in the gym.?
What happens in the gym is one thing, what happens in the ring is another.
?In the third round I hurt my left hand,? said Chavez, who never met an excuse he didn?t like. ?I think it?s broken, I don?t know. I?ll see the doctor. With all respect to Reyes, if I hadn?t hurt my hand I would have knocked him out.?
And if Captain Hook had two hands he could play a Beethoven sonata.
?I connected on the best punches to the chin and the body,? Chavez continued. ?I hurt him, but I couldn?t finish him because I hurt my hand. He threw a lot of punches but missed a lot. He never hurt me. I felt I hurt him every time I landed.?
That may be so. Weighing 20 pounds more than your opponent has its advantages.
Reyes was no happier at how the fight transpired than the rest of us.
?I feel I won the fight,? he said. ?I showed him how I box. I made the weight at 168 and he didn?t make weight. He?s like a light heavyweight fighting a middleweight. He came in at like 200 pounds.?
Whatever Chavez weighed is as mysterious as why Chavez fights. It could be that he?s a masochist (or a sadist from a fan?s perspective). It could simply be Oedipal.
He has been called a ?spoiled rich kid? by writers far and wide, by writers slim and wide, with no lasting effect. But spoiled rich kids can play polo. They?re not obliged to get hit in the face.
Chavez has his faults. His lack of discipline may be unforgivable. But I have a grudging respect for what he has attempted. It may be something of a train wreck, but rubbernecking never goes out of style.
